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Constantius' paideia, intellectual milieu and promotion of the liberal arts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Nick Henck
Nick Henck
Affiliation:
The Bodleian Library, Oxford
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Extract

Constantine the Great's sons, Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans, were the first Roman emperors since Commodus (AD 180–92), Marcus Aurelius' son, to have been brought up in the imperial household and groomed as heirs apparent. Constantine II reigned for a mere three years and suffered damnatio memoriae, while our evidence for Constans is scant due to the loss of the early books of Ammianus' Res Gestae. As a result, we know little detail regarding their education and any subsequent influence it may have had upon their respective rules. Fortunately, the same is not true of their brother, Constantius, who reigned for some twenty-four years as Augustus and is the subject of seven still-extant panegyrics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 47 , 2001 , pp. 172 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 Vita Constantini 4.51. See Ausonius. Prof. 17. for the career of Arborius, perhaps Constantius' tutor. See also Downey, G., ‘Education in the Christian Roman Empire’, Speculum 32 (1955), 48–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 57, for the interesting conjecture that Constantine took particular care to ensure his sons received the best possible education, because of his acute awareness of the poverty of his own education.

2 Or. 59.34. Note that Wiemer, H.-U. (‘Libanius on Constantine’. CQ n.s. 44/2 (1994), 511–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar) has argued that Libanius drew on Eusebius' Vita Constantini for material for this panegyric.

3 Ausonius, , Prof. 17.8–13Google Scholar. Narbo inde recepit. / Illic Dalmatio genitos. fatalia regum nomina, tum pueros, grandi mercede docendi /formasti rhetor metam prope puberis aevi. / Caesareum qui mox indepti nomen, honorem / praesidis Hispanumque tibi tribuere tribunal.

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5 Aus., Prof. 16.15–16Google Scholar. H. G. Evelyn White, editor of the Loeb edition of Ausonius, states that ‘this prince is identified with Constantine II’ (I.123). PLRE I.98, s.v. Arborius 4, however, identifies Arborius' imperial pupil as ‘presumably Constantius or Constans’. The editors of the latter are surely correct, since Constantine II spent most of his formative years in the West.

6 Or. 1.10d.

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107 Conf. 8.2.3.

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